


5 Sunny Days and 1 Storm

by LadyLazarus



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Survival, but not really sterek-y, literally the tamest fic i have EVER written, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLazarus/pseuds/LadyLazarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is stranded on a deserted island after a plane accident. He has time to reflect.</p><p>Kind of a castaway AU, but not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Sunny Days and 1 Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HalfFizzbin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfFizzbin/gifts).



_Day 1_

_I lost Cora. I’m not sure what happened to us, but I think it was a plane accident on our way Brazil. Cora said she’d never been. The visas were easier to get than most places too. I found this journal water logged in the sand and a few pencils. There’s a pen but I don’t think it works. I’ve been here a few days now, but I’m marking today down as day one because it’s the first I can count. I think it’s still August. I’m on an island. I think it’s subtropical. It’s not really hot, but it’s definitely not cool It gets kind of cool at night. I built a lean-to against a few trees that grew close together not far from the beach. The island is small, but big enough to have wildlife. If I weren’t a werewolf I’m not sure I’d have survived. This place makes Castaway look like a vacation. Fuck you Tom Hanks._

Derek looked up from the journal he’d dried out on a large flat boulder. The waves looked soft, like blankets falling over each other onto the sand. The sun beat down on him, but wasn’t unbearable. He’d taken some vine and tied up the larger leaves on a branch overhead to make a small shady spot to sit in and watch the ocean.

“What’s the one thing you’d bring with you if you were stranded on a deserted island?”

It’s such a stupid icebreaker question he’d heard since he was a little kid. Over and over and over. His answer always changed: food, books, a jet, family. Now, when actually faced with the situation, he couldn’t think of anything.

Derek felt oddly calm about the whole thing. Yeah he wanted to get to civilization, but also he was surviving and he was fine. Nothing tried to bother him or eat him. If there was an apex predator of some kind, he could probably fight it. The local hog population could last him for a while. He knew basic survival skills and there was fruit too. He had shelter.

He didn’t have people though.

~*~

_Day 8_

_It’s been a week since I found this journal. It’s getting harder to be positive and it’s only been a week. I don’t want to waste everything I have trying to build a fire when clearly no one is looking for me. Cora and I didn’t even say goodbye to anyone. If Cora is alive, she wouldn’t know where to look. God I hope she’s alive. ~~It’s actually easier to believe she’s alive since I haven’t buried her yet.~~ Fuck. I miss being able to talk to people. I keep imagining conversation I’ve had. I keep wondering why I never said one thing or another. I feel like I’m frozen in time, like without other people my life is standing still. I keep going through the days, but the memory of me is locked in place with the people that I left and I only have the past to keep me company. Nothing is changing. I feel lonely. ~~I feel like I did before Isaac.~~_

Sometimes hours or whole lengths of daylight pass and Derek doesn’t even realize it. He goes whole periods without a single daydream. The waves roll over and over. When he looks at them they look like fluffy avalanches of water, but when he turns away to the sand or sky or the edge of the trees, he sees the waves in the corner of his eye and they look angry. The look like icy glass shards tumbling out of the edge of his vision. They look like knives.

One would think that he’d have a lot of time to sit around and think, but honestly, he doesn’t think about anything. He sits and he swims and he jogs to stay relatively in shape. He thinks about making a stronger structure to live in. The winds are picking up and last night part of the leaf-roof flew away. The only rain that has come has just been a drizzle.

~*~

_Day 33_

_I finished the corral for the hogs. If cavemen learned how to be ranchers, I could probably manage it. Right? I think I’m far enough north of the Caribbean to miss the hurricanes. If it was August when I got here, then I should be almost out of the season. What do you think hogs here eat? I think I’m just gonna give them fruit to make friends and then start leaving the gate open for them to graze during the day and tame them. I named the biggest female Erica and the male Boyd. I haven’t found an Isaac yet. I don’t know if I will. There’s a Stiles though. I’m not going to eat him._

Naming the hogs was definitely a bad idea. He couldn’t bring himself to eat Bright-Eyes or Mr. Piggles or Piggly-Wiggly. He ate the others, but it was so awkward when they stared at him like they knew what he was doing. The wind died down, but the rain was starting to pick up. Derek had built a strong structure, but hadn’t found something to really plug up the gaps between the reed and driftwood roof he’d built.

He was thinking about Scott today. He never gave the kid enough slack. He never told him how much he admired his conviction and his strength. _I guess it’s validated now that he knows he’s a true alpha._ Derek looked at the hogs running around in the corral. Derek used to wonder where Jackson was, what he was doing. He still felt responsible. He still felt like everything was his fault. _It IS your fault, idiot_. Derek closed his eyes against the twinkling sand.

He thought about Allison too. He’d been such an ass. Of course she’d blown up and tried to kill Erica and Boyd and Isaac. Of course she’d been angry at him. Gerard and Peter were both the real problems behind Allison. She was just 16 and hurt. If he ever got off this island, he’d apologize. For now, a note in his journal would have to do.

He nodded to himself, reaching down to pick up some sand, letting it sift out of his closed fist. Peter too. He thought about Peter a lot. He was one of the hardest to think about. Peter, who had killed Laura. Peter who had killed Kate and set the Argents against them. Peter who had tried to bite Stiles. Peter who had bit Scott. Peter who had tried to kill him. Peter who had stayed in the shadows as the Darach and the Alpha pack tormented the residents of Beacon Hills. Peter who had disappeared at the last moment. Peter who tried to destroy Lydia. Peter whose eyes were blue. _Yours are blue too, murderer._ Derek grimaced, wiping his sandy hand against his tattered pants.

It was hard to realize that Peter was so manipulative and hadn’t changed at all. He always seemed so shady growing up, but his mother must have kept him in line. The waves looked like salivating tongues today.

~*~

_Day 60-something?_

_I forgot to journal for a few days, so I don’t know how long it’s really been. A couple months haven’t really hurt me physically. I don’t think Cora is alive though. She’d still be looking for me and I haven’t even seen a boat or airplane anywhere this whole time. A suitcase washed up onto the beach today though. There were some women’s clothes, which were useless at first, but I turned them into a cushion so I have something soft to sleep on. I was thinking about Stiles a lot. I didn’t realize how much I miss him._

Actually Derek missed him the most. He thought about the one thing he would have brought to this deserted island if he could. It would be Stiles. He didn’t need to rely on anyone for survival, especially now that he’d started to breed the hogs and gotten them into a routine. Different trees were starting to produce fruit as the ones before slowly stopped. He’d found some edible rhizomes in the central, earthier part of the island where the shrubs grew. If we was still here in the summer, those might have some kind of berry, but he wouldn’t know if they were poisonous until they were ripe.

No he didn’t need anyone for survival, but he Stiles wouldn’t be here for that. Stiles would make him laugh. He’d make fun of him and he’d complain and he’d make him angry. Stiles would be so annoying, but he would also be the one to hold him when the crushing loneliness swept him up like the driftwood he burned at night. Stiles’ imagination was endless it seemed. He would be able to tell stories Derek had never heard of and never will. Stiles would make up games to play when the days escaped Derek and he just sat there for a second and the net realized it was dark.

He talked to “Stiles” a lot. He could picture him, always in pristine, comics-related T-shirts and colored pants, sitting on the big log near the edge of the trees. He could see him in the same T-shirt wet, splashing in the waves, tossing the salty water in Derek’s eyes. He could see Stiles looking up through his eyelashes though the flickers of the fire as it cracked and the salt sent up green flares to the sky, pockmarked with the brightest stars he’d seen in his life.

Derek saw Stiles in those stars, especially when there were clouds and a full moon. He saw them through his werewolf eyes and the streaks of light across the sky made up his smile.

He started to think about every instance he had with Stiles: every time they had interacted or spoken or texted. He thought about the way Stiles’ eyes lingered on his arms and his body when he had changed shirts that one time. He thought about how his eyes could never stay on the boy’s eyes or nose, they always flickered to his mouth. They always caught his tongue as they wet his dried lips as he explained something with fervor.

When he talked to “Stiles,” he imagined that the boy was making fun of him most of the time, but out he always caught a small smile on his face as he turned away to ponder the sand or the waves or the softly swaying branches overhead. Derek imagined the way Stiles would always stay out with the fire a bit longer than Derek. He’d put it out with a bucket of sand and then he’d climb up next to Derek on the makeshift mattress made out of ragged dresses and one unfortunate-looing jumper. He could feel Stile’s long fingers reaching up to his chest, splayed over his heart, as if he had to hold it in his chest, keep it beating. When he realized that he was imagining these things, Derek would always reach over, testing the darkness and the shadows for a body, laughing as it played tricks on him.

Imaginary or not, he could always feel Stiles’ soft lips resting on his arm as he drifted to sleep with Derek, illuminated by the stars alone.

The waves that crashed in the background sounded like roars. Derek hadn’t gone in the water for weeks, except to bathe.

~*~

_Day 100 or something_

_I keep thinking about Castaway and how it’s basically my life now. The only difference is that Tom Hanks had a community to go back to, and I really don’t. I think I could put together some kind of boat, but there isn’t any reason to I keep realizing. I want to tell Stiles that I love him, but this journal could do that for me. Well, he’s not going to read it, but if he did, it would. That’s a stupid sentence. I’m almost running out of pencil. I don’t have anything else to write with after this. I’m gonna miss writing in you, journal. You and Stiles are my only company now and as soon as I run out of ~~lead~~ graphite, I just have my fucked up imagination. I re-read stuff I already wrote, and when I thought I was lonely, I don’t think I understood what loneliness was. I’m not really sure why I’m still alive. The hogs are good._

Derek could feel a really nasty storm coming on soon. It was still sunny, but dark clouds were gathering to the east. He was perched up on the boulder he liked to sit on the most, trying to think of ways to make it up to everyone back in Beacon Hills if he ever got back. He’d thought about it a million times. He’d join Scott’s pack for sure. He needed Scott – way more than Scott needed Derek obviously. He’d show Scott that he was a good worker. He could keep his head down. He could control his emotions.

He’d apologize to Isaac for all the shit he put him through. He’d help him apply to colleges and pay for the application fees and he’d help him out with lacrosse and be a good big brother. He’d show Isaac he cared about him and that he loved him too. He show him he was family and he wanted him in his life.

He’d apologize to Allison and Lydia. He’d tell them they were a couple of the strongest women he’s ever known. He’d help them kill Peter if they hadn’t already. He’d show them how he respected them and how much he appreciated how they helped him even when he was being an ass.

He’d tell Stiles everything and he’d never let go.

~*~

_Derek had finished writing in his journal just as the first few droplets started falling. The nub of a pencil that was left was barely useful anymore and he had started to look for some natural dye he could dip the pencil point in to write more in the coming days. A crack of thunder sounded overhead. There were dull flashes of lightning between the clouds and the air felt full of static. He walked to his hut structure and quickly slipped the journal and pencil under the mattress in case the storm rained over this way. He used to be paranoid about the rain, but he quickly realized how the sky could look like dirty dishwater and anger and smoke, but the storm would be miles away and he’d only get some higher winds. Today though, it looked like it was going to dump on him. He sat under his roof and watched the waves rise, getting choppier and angrier, like gnashing teeth. In the distance one low, almost black cloud grew._

Derek watched the cloud as it approached. The droplets that were falling earlier started to sound heavier and faster against the roof. Now that he had a roof to be under, he like to listen to the storms as they passed over him. They were soothing after a while. They lulled him to sleep and let him rest for a while. He relaxed as he breathed in the cool wet air. He felt the salt of the ocean in his lungs. He let himself drift.

“Derek!”

It sounded like Cora was calling to him between the thunderclaps. He’d had this sort of dream before, even when he was awake. He’d felt her hands on his face before. He’d fantasized about her holding his face and hugging him and rescuing him from this sand and the waves and the quivering trees. It hurt to see her in his mind’s eye though. If he was going to dream, he was going to do it in the darkness of closed eyes.

“Derek! Stiles! We found him! Derek!”

Of course Stiles was in this dream too. Why wouldn’t he be? He’d envisioned this scenario time and again in every permutation that existed. Stiles would kiss him. Stiles would slap him. Stiles would stay with him on the island forever. Stiles would sail away without seeing him. Stiles wouldn’t come in the first place. This was one of the happier ones where Stiles would come with Cora and carry him off. Derek smiled.

“Derek, wake the fuck up! Maybe he’s dehydrated? Stiles, grab his legs.”

“Derek, come on man! Please be alive…”

Derek felt hands on him, two on his ankles and two reaching under his shoulder to lift him up. He thought he was imagining that too, but then he started to lift up from his mattress. He opened his eyes and saw Stiles, turned away, looking back at a beached boat, painted with an orange stripe around the sides. His neck was long pale stripe. God he looked even better than in his imagination. The low cloud was actually boat, a fairly large gray sea-monster. Derek couldn’t tell if it was government or privately owned. Maybe it was a research vessel.

“Stiles? Cora?” Maybe they weren’t real after all. The rain felt real enough and the hands felt strong and tight enough to maybe be real. This would be his worst dream yet if they weren’t.

Stiles and Cora dropped him at the same time into the water-logged sand. Derek just gazed up at them, slowly rolling over to stand up.

“Derek!” Cora was crying, hugging him as he stood in the rain and thunderclaps rung in his ear. Stiles hesitated as if he wanted to let the Hales have their moment before he rushed in and hugged Derek back.

“I fucking missed you. Don’t ever leave me again.” Derek was crying too. With the rain, he could deny it later, but the three of them were a sobbing mess on a soggy beach next to a lifeboat that would finally rescue Derek from his subtropical hell.

“I missed you too.”

Someday, someone would find the journal. For now though, Derek had all he needed to survive on a deserted island.

**Author's Note:**

> This is totally the product of procrastination because i'm avoiding my Big bang fic that's due on the 16th. whoops. You can find me on tumblr as [Foolproofpoem.](http://foolproofpoem.tumblr.com/)


End file.
